There are not many things that you can predict will happen when working with Redmoon. Even though I have worked with Frank many times before, I only knew a few things about the music I was going to write for Boneyard Prayer:

About a third of the music was going to be devoted to vocal songs dressed up in Tin Pan Alley, Vaudeville, or Kurt Weill type orchestrations. Another third of the music was going to be modern/rock interpretations of traditional folk music. We were often referring to the mid/late ’80s Tom Waits releases and the Harry Smith Anthology of American Folk Music. Many times, I remember thinking I was playing slow motion, Brian Eno arrangements of Elizabeth Cotten or Rev. Gary Davis guitar pieces. The last third was orchestral music and sound design recorded at my home studio.

From working with Frank before, I prepared myself with a notebook of melodies and arrangements, knowing that my perception of the music would change as soon as I saw the actors, puppets, and stage. While some compositions were written months ago, I knew that many of the tunes would be written once the script had been revised. In fact, the closing number was composed on the spot during the last week of rehearsals.

Toward the end of the composition process, the music became more “operatic” as certain musical themes started stretching and connecting different acts of the play. The piece attached to the March 28 post below, “Alice,” a sprawling orchestral score in the play, is also alluded to in a crunchy guitar/percussion instrumental called “We On The Bum,” when Martin travels back to the city. The melodies and lyrics of “Boneyard Shuffle,” a minor-key ragtime number, are brought back in the plays closing song, but within a major key.

The most surprising and satisfying thing to me is how these amazing performers have taken these compositions and completely transformed them in to something wholly their own. Alex, Kasey, Alice, and Rob have become a veritable orchestra and given the music a life and urgency I could not have foreseen when the music was composed.

-Charles Kim, Composer and Musical Director